Becoming Influential

Power as defined by Kelly & Crawford (2008) is the ability to achieve ones goals by creating, acquiring and using resources to do so. Nurses over time whether learned, cultural or related to gender-specific characteristics, have not embraced power (Kelly & Crawford, 2008). The public view of nurses as subordinates to physicians, simply trained to follow doctors orders, an overall lack of understanding as to the level of education and the kind of work nurses actually do (Sullivan, 2004) has lent to this perception. Sullivan (2004) writes about telling nursings story as an avenue to turn opinions around; empower nurses at an individual level, and ultimately raise the bar to a degree where...